Posted by
Garnet92 on Sunday, July 13, 2008 2:32:10 PM
At least it is to the left. Liberals don’t often ask, and never answer, WHY? And it is their biggest weakness.
Now, in the summer of 2008, much of America is lamenting $4.00 gasoline. There’s no reason to ask why everyone is so distraught over higher gas prices – that’s pretty easy to figure – it can be a family budget buster. But, when the dems continue their tired old rants, “we can’t drill our way out of this mess,” “it’ll take ten years to bring to market,” and “speculators are driving up the price,” we should be asking “WHY?” to each of those statements. Let’s see their “logic.”
WHY can’t “we drill out way out of this mess”? Please explain the reasoning that supports that statement. The truth is: we can. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of economics must conclude that increasing the supply to a static demand will reduce the price. To exaggerate for effect, if the U.S. was to increase our production by 7 million barrels/day, we would equal the crude that we import from our top five suppliers (Canada, Saudi, Mexico, Nigeria, and Venezuela). Even my dog would agree that prices would drop. So, now that we’ve established that increased production could reduce prices, we only need to estimate how much prices would fall if we increased production by, let’s say, one million barrels/day - a not unreasonable number.
As far as the ten-year pessimism goes, I’ve heard experts that hold to a five or six-year time-span as being more realistic, not ten. Regardless, the journey begins with a single step, and the step must be taken NOW. Instead of proposing a “windfall profits tax,” why not propose a “windfall production bonus”? Find and get the oil to market sooner and earn a bonus – that works everywhere else in the marketplace.
Very little that government does takes place in much less than ten years – should we not call for a higher CAFÉ standard because the target MPG will take manufacturers ten years to achieve? Should we not fund space exploration or develop new military hardware because it will take ten years to complete? That’s hogwash. WHY shouldn’t we start now?
WHY do speculators “drive up the price”? Once again, simple economics. They’re betting that our 21 million barrel daily consumption will continue to rise and exceed our static production by at least 12 million barrels/day (CIA 2005 estimated figures). Demand rises, domestic production remains static, and we must import more crude. When demand outpaces supply, the price goes up. Is that too difficult to understand? The speculators are merely gambling on the price continuing to rise. What would happen if (magically) the world’s production doubled tomorrow? Wouldn’t the price a speculator would expect to pay drop drastically? WHY can’t the dems in Congress understand that?
WHY are the statements coming from the dems so out of touch with reality? The answer is pure and simple – politics. Congressional democrats are pandering to environmental “wackos” and don’t want anything constructive to happen on George Bush’s watch. When new drilling must occur to satisfy their constituents, dems will want to take credit for it.
Is it any wonder that congressional approval ratings have continued to drop? RealClearPolitics reports an average approval rating for congress at 18% [update: RCP average of 4 July polls is now down to 17.3%] - it was 34% when the democrats took control in 2006. As Einstein defined insanity: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. What congress has been doing hasn’t worked – isn’t it time to do something different?